The Hoosier State Press Association Board of Directors will work with the Wisconsin Newspaper Association and press technology company Tecnavia to create a comprehensive content management system.
The system should benefit member newspapers, the association and newspaper readers.
The program will create a more robust and complete statewide public notice advertising website than the current one found at www.indianapublicnotices.com.
When fully implemented, public notices published in newspapers by local and state government agencies will be searchable on the website.
The system will allow HSPA to create a clipping service that will let clients see what the Indiana news media has published, broadcast or posted about them.
The service should become a revenue source for HSPA and possibly member newspapers.
The system also will build a computer-searchable archive of all HSPA-member newspapers. This becomes a tool for each paper’s newsroom and may be the source of other ways to centralize content for Indiana newspapers.
The process also will allow newspapers to create electronic tearsheets to simplify billing for advertisers.
The HSPA board voted on the contract during its October meeting. Members heard recommendations from the board’s Content Management Committee, chaired by Tina West, publisher of The Courier-Times (New Castle).
Other committee members were Robyn McCloskey, publisher of the Pharos-Tribune (Logansport) and Kokomo Tribune; Kim Wilson, publisher of the South Bend Tribune; and Kathy Tretter, publisher of the Ferdinand News and Spencer County Leader (Dale).
“As a member of HSPA I am excited that the association has the best interest of our newspapers in mind with this step toward content management,” West said. “I am looking forward to this partnership with the Wisconsin Newspaper Association and Tecnavia.
“We will look back at this time as a day we started something really good for HSPA and its members,” she said.
The committee examined proposals from four different potential partners before selecting the Wisconsin-Tecnavia proposition.
Tecnavia, established in 1975, will be the technical arm of the program.
The company is in the pre-press industry and satellite-signal reception business. The Wisconsin Newspaper Association is HSPA’s counterpart in that state.
Tecnavia also works on other newspaper-industry technologies, such as mobile applications, said Beth Bennett, executive director of the Wisconsin association.
Once the board signs the contract, Tecnavia should revamp the public notice advertising website within 90 days.
The other services should go online within four to six months of the agreement.
